


tradition

by iluxia



Category: Initial D
Genre: Drama, Gen, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-25
Updated: 2009-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluxia/pseuds/iluxia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oneshot, complete. There is still tradition to keep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tradition

There are clear skies against a crisp cooling wind on the day of Fujiwara Bunta’s passing.

Takumi remembers the previous night and realizes that deep inside, he somehow instinctively knew. His father had gone with Mizuki, his son, for a spin with the old 86 on Akina. When they’d returned, his father had worn a look of indescribable contentedness, and had said to him simply, “Mizuki will be a great driver one day. Be sure to teach him well, just as I taught you.”

The words ring in his ears as he pulls a panicking Mizuki downstairs, letting the paramedics past. He knows full well that their help is too late. His father is old, anyway, and had worn himself down racing hard to teach him techniques even with an ailing body. 

No, wait, that’s wrong, he thinks. His father _was_ old.

“Takumi—“ Keisuke and Ryosuke are here now; Mizuki tackles the younger of the brothers in distress. “We came as fast as we could. Your father…?”

He opens his mouth to explain the situation, but his voice won’t obey—not a single word comes out. After a stretch of silence, he realizes the wetness on his cheeks, and simply shakes his head. Ryosuke’s warmth beside him and Keisuke behind him, both are welcome support, but for some reason, the more and more he dwells in this reality, he can’t help but feel that the foundation of the world he’s built for the past twenty years has gone.

  
  


~

 

There are clear skies against a crisp cooling wind on the day of Fujiwara Bunta’s funeral. 

Mizuki stands before his grandfather’s grave and cries to his content without one ounce of shame. He’s all of ten years old, young and yet immature, but despite his age—and perhaps even in spite of it—he feels the loss all to concrete, a chunk of his life suddenly ripped away from him by an age-old enemy of humankind. 

He doesn’t even want to think about how painful this is for his father, who has many more memories of grandfather to remind of the loss. He’s thankful for Uncle Keisuke and Uncle Ryosuke; they’ve always been there for them, always, to the point of spoiling both him and his father, grandfather used to say. 

But most of all, he doesn’t want to think about what will happen in a decade or two, when his father is old and ailing and still stubbornly racing on steep and dangerous mountain passes. The adrenalin is something a young body can easily handle and even revel in, but for an old man? He doesn’t think so. 

He turns his mind away from this train of thought, because he doesn’t think he can survive it when he’s in his father’s shoes, watching a similar scene in the far future as they are today. 

The last night that he had been with his grandfather and driving on Akina, the old man had been unusually silent, as if far too gone into taking in every single sensation of the drive. He knows he still is far, far away from his grandfather or his father or Uncle Keisuke or Uncle Ryosuke’s skills, but he tries, and he practices, every single day. The old man had said nothing after the drive, only laid a hand on his shoulder, a hand heavy with something he hesitates to name, but instinctively knows is pride. 

“Fucking shitty old man,” he grinds his teeth around the words. “Fucking _shitty_ old man! He didn’t even wait until I could pass him on Akina!” 

For him, who has only ever known his grandfather and father and uncles as family, the pain of not being able to follow through with the tradition they have established is too much to bear. 

He feels his father’s hand on his shoulder, a thumb on his bare nape, cold. Snow is beginning to fall; his last run with grandfather on Akina will be his last run this year. For him it’s yet unsafe to run alone on Akina in winter. 

“Come on, Mizuki,” his father says. “Let’s go home.” He leans into the wide warmth of his father’s hand: a warmth he now knows to treasure like no other. “Tonight, we’ll sleep in dad’s room together, after we go for a spin on Akina on the 86. And then tomorrow, I’ll take the Impreza’s keys; the 86 will be yours to keep.” 

Yes, there is still tradition to continue, this Mizuki understands. He will become a great driver one day, just like grandfather and father, and the first step towards this is next year: he will tackle his first winter on Akina, alone. 

_The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living._  
( Cicero )


End file.
